I'm a little nervous about posting this late. I sometimes say things I regret when I write journal entries this late at night.
Those of you who are familiar with my weirdo sleep cycles will be wondering why I'm still up. Shouldn't I be halfway through the night's sleep? Well, I just got back from Todd's (Heather's friend), where we (Ian, El, Heather, David, Todd, Jen (Todd's current SO) and I) played pool for a while. Todd has a new pool table. He's much better than the rest of us. Heather's pretty good too. Ian and I are pretty evenly matched, I think -- we both make occasional killer shots, or have runs of solid shots, which look impressive. The rest of the time, we suck, and miss easy ones. Sigh.
I'm feeling guilty about leaving that "Bleak December" poem up so long as the current entry. It's misleading...life is actually pretty good in a lot of ways right now, and I'm generally happy. Christmas shopping is almost done (Kevin's sister is difficult!). Lots of presents to wrap tomorrow, which I think is fun.
Our piano was fixed and tuned today. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. I am woefully out of practice, but I did play seriously once upon a time, and it was fun pulling out concert pieces that I once had memorized and note-perfect and now staggering through them. David didn't laugh too much. Kind soul. You may hear more about these pieces, if I'm good and practice the way I said I would. It would be nice to be able to play classical piano again. I did get some joy out of it, despite the battles with my mother over practicing. (I used to read and play scales at the same time, so she'd think I was really practicing. I don't think I fooled her, though. In fact, I'm sure I didn't.)
Ellie and I have been cooking up a storm. The rich cake (Sri Lankan fruitcake) is done cooking -- I'll be cutting it into small pieces and wrapping them (sort of like Xmas crackers) on Sunday, I think. The mincemeat pie is done too. El's got the plum pudding sitting (it was supposed to sit for 12 hours) -- tomorrow she's supposed to boil it for 8. I'll be supervising some of that. The fruit is soaking in sherry for the trifle. I think that'll be finished on Sunday morning, so the cake and custard and cream stay fresh. The cookie dough is made and refrigerating -- tomorrow we roll it out and cut it into Xmas and Chanukah shapes. Ian promised to help. Tomorrow is also the meat and fruit pie, and that'll pretty much take care of our share of food. Beth is bringing latkes. Others will bring other things. We'll make wassail Sunday morning. You can tell I haven't gotten much temp work this week.
Good things. Hmm...I'm running out of good things. I have a lot of free-floating anxiety these days -- about money, relationships, Clean Sheets legal matters, piled up e-mail, unfinished writing -- just about everything, really. Close, anyway. I'm going to fret myself into an ulcer if I'm not careful. Oh, but Kevin's arriving in a week. That's a good thing. And it'll calm me down. His presence is good for that. Not that I can't work myself into a state about him too -- but those tend not to last. Unlike the money stress.
Okay, I'm not going to fret about it. I'm just not. It doesn't help. I have a plan, and everything is fairly under control. I just hate having so many balls up in the air, unsettled. I don't deal well with this much chaos. It's why I was such an excellent executive secretary. I'm really good at imposing order.
It's funny -- there are really two situations when I tend to write well. One is when everything is done. My room is clean, the dishes are done, my papers are sorted -- everything's in its place and there's nothing left to do *but* write. The other case is the opposite -- when the music's blaring and the roommates are talking and my room's a mess and I have twenty things due yesterday and the bills are getting uppity about being paid *sometime* before the New Year, and I'm convinced everybody hates me. Okay, that's a little excessive, but basically, total chaos is also a productive environment for me.
Maybe I'm just not good at moderation. I'll ask Kevin what he thinks of that theory when he arrives. He's pretty good at being moderate -- when he isn't totally inflexible. Hmm...who do I know who's actually moderate? *think think think* It's a pretty short list. Maybe moderate people don't make quite so exciting friends. But maybe they're better for you. Like a piece of fruit, maybe dipped in honey, instead of tiramisu. Or two slices of bread and curry, instead of half a loaf. Something like that.
Okay, I'm getting incoherent. I think I'll wrap presents for a while and see if the coherency returns. Maybe I'll do some real work then. (Have I mentioned that I also tend to write either ridiculously early in the morning, or ridiculously late at night? Not always, but often.)